


For Juliet (1991)

by ohvienna



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Fanmix, Flash Sideways 'Verse, Music, Pregnancy, Series Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 17:20:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohvienna/pseuds/ohvienna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1991. Events in flash sideways, afterlife loading dock "memories," Jack POV. Tiny babies having babies, also making mixtapes. Jack and Juliet go on a cross-country road trip they probably shouldn't be taking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Juliet (1991)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Livejournal 6/8/2011, for the Lost Land challenge community.

They spend the morning stuffing suitcases and bags and boxes, zipping zippers, sealing up the products that composed her life pre- _now_ with packing tape (Jack does all of the heavy lifting). Must-keep possessions that won’t fit into the trunk are crammed into the backseat. Two small, stuffed bears had dropped to the floor when they'd first pulled out of the driveway, and every now and again he catches her glancing back at the fallen items, as if to assure herself they’re still there before turning again to the road, fixing her eyes on the long stretch of highway ahead.

 

***

 

_They had flown in to Miami, and rented a car to bring the rest of her possessions back to L.A. permanently._

_(It was after the fourth time he checked to make sure she really wanted to do this, and if she was going to be okay_ _on such a long trip, that he was told off._

_"I'm pregnant, not incapacitated," were the exact words. "As long as you don't get me into an accident," she warned,_ _handing him lemonade as he took a break from hauling boxes._

_"_ Relax _, Jack. We'll be fine.")_

 

***

 

“We should stop again in ten,” she says, gulping down water and stretching her legs out. Pauses and necessary rest-stops every couple of hours prolong the trip, but they have the time off and relish the freedom. The in-between.

 

It’s midway between Miami and Los Angeles that it hits him, the thought radiating over his skin with electric force. 

_This is happening._

It’s a good feeling. Riding on the I-10 in El Paso, watching her with her hair in the wind, his left hand on the wheel and the right reaching out for her stomach because she laughs and tells him that David (they’d decided the previous night, in the middle of her childhood bedroom, to stop joking around with the names of Greek gods) is quite possibly taking his first beginner's karate class. Jack can’t feel anything, not yet, but he leaves his hand there, anyway.

 

***

 

_It’s not that the gravity of their situation wasn’t clear from the start. From the moment she had spoken the words, her voice calm and collected, over the phone twenty-one weeks ago, or in the weight he felt bearing down on him during that drive to her tiny, shared apartment in L.A. afterwards. Or in all of the ensuing conversations that followed (each one encompassing a range of emotions and decibel levels)._

_It’s still visible in the flickering panic he catches in her eyes every now and again. The last time he noticed it was when they sped past a Welcome to Alabama sign, leaving Florida and her family in their wake._

 

***

 

He yells an “I’m sorry” over the din of the wind.

 

“What?”

 

“I just need you to hear it again. Because of. About what I said back when we - ” 

 

She stops him with a look.

 

He squints under his sunglasses, kicks himself for being incapable of letting it be, for wanting to make everything _just right_ by picking at wounds already healed.

 

 

***

 

_Before everything changed, there was only school and graduation to worry about, and her contemplating switching gears, of MDs and PhDs, of her possibly going into research instead of practicing obstetrics. The amount of times he heard the idea thrown around elevated the concept to a status akin to torture, especially when it involved the notion of moving back to Miami. “Back home” meant the length of the entire country forming a wall between them, and he hated it._

_“Maybe,” she’d clarified, “I’m really not sure it’s the right thing. It was just a feeling. I - ” And he stopped the rest of her thoughts with his lips on hers and then they’d both stopped thinking._

_They had laughed about it the night before heading back to L.A.; over that being most likely the moment they'd made all of_ this _happen._

_(And in spite of their careful efforts to avoid the scenario._ I think this was meant to happen _, was the first thing he'd said when she'd appeared at his front door after three days of radio silence.)_

_Standing in the middle of her room, it scared him that she didn’t look much older than the handful of high school photographs still decorating the dresser._

_And she wasn’t. Neither was he._

 

 

***

 

He mentally calculates that their son’s due date falls just about three weeks shy of his twenty-second birthday. 

“Jack.”

He snaps back to attention at the firmness in her voice.

“Everything I own that isn't already in L.A. is in this car. And, I might add, I’m five months pregnant with what happens to be your son, so. Listen to me because I’m only going to say this one more time.”

 

“I’m listening.”

 

“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters anymore.” 

 

He chooses to believe her, because he’s intolerant of hypotheticals. No sense wasting time on no-longer-viable futures when their new reality is right underneath his fingertips. He thinks maybe he feels something, but chalks it up to want and imagination. She grabs his hand when he makes to move it away, presses her palm to his, interlocking fingers. 

 

“In a couple more weeks, you’ll definitely feel him,” she assures, and he knows he must look disappointed.

 

“The glove box.” 

 

“What?”

 

“Open the glove box. I made you something. I meant to give it to you before we left but - ”

 

It only takes a moment for her to locate what he’s referring to. She pulls the tape case out, reads the inscription, and looks up at him with her eyebrows raised and an expression that he can’t quite read. He’s all of the sudden nervous and inwardly feeling like a thirteen-year-old trying to impress his first girlfriend.

 

“You made this?” 

 

“When you said you needed time to think, and then you didn’t talk to me for days.”

 

“Oh. Right. That.”

 

“But then we were okay, so I didn’t finish it until last week. After you said yes.”

 

“Maybe we should swing by Vegas,” she curls the words into a sarcastic question mark, and he laughs.

 

She takes a minute to read the tracks scrawled across the back before looking up at him with a combination of emotions that makes him sure of his success (he thinks her smirk is an attempt to hold back a few tears). 

 

Jack shoots her a smile. 

 

“The last song’s for David.”

 

She pops the tape into the deck, and turns up the volume.

 

***

 

  
  
  
  
**01\. love song | the cure**

however far away  
i will always love you   
however long i stay   
i will always love you   
whatever words i say   
i will always love you 

 

**02\. throw your arms around me | hunters & collectors**

i will come for you at nighttime  
i will raise you from your sleep  
i will kiss you in four places  
as i go running along your street  
you will make me call your name  
and i'll shout it to the blue summer sky  
and we may never meet again  
so shed your skin and let's get started

 

**03\. i will not take these things for granted | toad the wet sprocket**

i'm listening  
laughter in the hall  
children in the park  
i will not take these things for granted  
anymore  
to crawl inside the wire and feel something near me  
to feel this accepting  
that it is lonely here, but not alone  
and on the telephone  
you offer visions dancing

 

**04\. advice for the young at heart | tears for fears**

soon we will be older   
when we gonna make it work?   
too many people living in a secret world   
while they play mothers and fathers   
we play little boys and girls   
and when i think of you and all the love that's due   
i'll make a promise, i'll make a stand   
we've got the whole wide world in our hands 

 

**05\. ultraviolet (light my way) | U2**

you bury your treasure  
where it can't be found  
there is a silence that comes to a house  
where no one can sleep  
i guess it's the price of love  
i know it's not cheap  
baby, baby, baby...light my way   
i remember when we could sleep on stones  
now we lie together in whispers and moans  
when i was all messed up  
and i had opera in my head  
your love was a light bulb  
hanging over my bed

 

**06\. streets of your town | the go-betweens**

round and round, up and down  
through the streets of your town  
everyday i make my way  
through the streets of your town  
i ride your river under the bridge  
i take your boat out to the reach  
because i love that engine roar

 

**07\. i melt with you | modern english**

moving forward using all my breath  
making love to you was never second best  
there's nothing you and i won't do  
i'll stop the world and melt with you  
you've seen the difference   
and it's getting better all the time  
dream of better lives the kind which never hate  
wrapped in a state of imaginary grace  
the future's open wide

 

**08\. heaven (acoustic) | buffalo tom**

there's a man on the air  
with a love-you line  
and a face on the glass  
and it looks like mine  
and heaven is the home of our hearts  
and heaven won't tear you apart

 

**09\. endgame | R.E.M.**

instrumental

 

**10\. beautiful boy | john lennon**

before you cross the street  
take my hand  
life is what happens to you  
while you're busy making other plans 

 

.zip on [mediafire](http://www.mediafire.com/file/ehyqky7xbhlk8id/fj91%20-%20amt.zip)


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